Corporate Serious Games Are Changing The Rules Of Product Development

For software developers, serious games provide new ways to gain insights into customers and make smarter decisions faster. In many respects, serious games complement Agile, Lean, and other process improvements. While serious games have general application in innovation, we are using software development as a starting point for understanding their potential.

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Why do serious games work?<br />Structured<br />Rules, but often no winners<br />Purposeful<br />Definite outcome<br />Time-bound<br />By definition, a time-boxed exercise<br />Participatory<br />Success depends on everyone participating.<br />Egalitarian<br />Everyone has an equal opportunity to participate.<br />All of which can simplify decision-making and generate new insights.<br />

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Reducing complexity<br />Rewriting a decade-old system from scratch<br />Needed to economize on features included in the first version<br />Used a Product Box game to ask stakeholders what was most important<br />Some surprises in the results<br />Communicated the results throughout the company<br />OUR PRODUCT<br />Now with more stuff!<br />

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Challenging team dynamics<br />At end of sprint (development cycle), use a serious game to ask what they could do differently the next time<br />EX: Prune the product tree<br />Off-cycle, use serious games to generate ideas<br />Collaborate with Bangalore team<br />Why do serious games work?<br />“Ask powerful questions”<br />Collaborate over distances<br />Collaborate across group boundaries<br />

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Your next move with serious games<br />START WITH THE IMMEDIATE<br />Pick the game that addresses your issue.<br />Prepare, prepare, prepare.<br />Make sure you have enough resources for the exercise.<br />Record the exercise.<br />Socialize the results.<br />Plan for the next game.<br />THEN MAKE SERIOUS GAMES AN ONGOING ACTIVITY<br />Requirements<br />Planning<br />Retrospection<br />Ad hoc decision-making<br />Rules that apply to any context, not just software development.<br />